Understanding the wind flow structure of meteorological phenomena from a single ground-based Doppler radar data has proved difficult despite numerous prior art approaches. Due to the practical limitations of dual-Doppler radar observations, existing approaches have focused mainly on single-Doppler radar observations. It is possible to observe qualitative characteristics of simple meteorological flow patterns such as straight-line wind, rotational wind, and converging/diverging wind with a single Doppler radar. In order to quantify wind structures such as convergence, deformation, and voracity, however, wind retrieval algorithms such as velocity azimuthal display (VAD), volume velocity processing (VVP), or velocity track display (VTD) must be applied to single-Doppler radar data. The current wind retrieval algorithms in use have limitations in that they provide underlying flow models that are either centered at the radar or at a user selected location. The radial velocity information that these algorithms provide have a vector-like property that lacks a general relationship to the corresponding three dimensional (3D) Cartesian wind vectors.
The present application overcomes some of these drawbacks and presents a new algorithm which substantially eliminates the limitations of the above-mentioned wind retrieval algorithms, allowing for better qualitative and quantitative analysis of both linear and non-linear atmospheric flow patterns. According to an embodiment of the invention, the algorithm used by the present invention fits an atmospheric flow pattern detected at a single-Doppler radar to a distance Doppler velocity, rVd, where Vd is the Doppler velocity and r is the distance between the radar and the gate. By scaling Doppler velocity data to r, the data can be expressed via a polynomial representation. For linear wind fields, rVd may be mathematically represented as a quadratic curve from which some linear features may be graphically estimated. For non-linear wind fields, the mathematical representation of rVd is much simpler than that produced by other wind retrieval algorithms.
The present application provides a distance velocity azimuth display (DVAD) technique and its applications to wind fields. The technique of the present Application extends the foundation of VAD already established in an attempt to address the limitations inherent in the VAD technique. Wind field kinematic structures displayed in the DVAD, or rVd space simplify the interpretation of the radar signature and eliminate the geometric distortion inherited in the VAD, or Vd space. The present invention makes the interpretation and computation of gross wind field properties more intuitive.